The application refers to a connector device for connecting at least one optical fiber, especially for connecting endpieces of optical fibers of an active optical cable to an electric terminal. The application further refers to an active optical cable comprising at least one connector device and to a method of manufacturing a plurality of connector devices.
Electric terminals of computers and further technical devices, such as USB port terminals, for instance, are connectable by cables for the purpose of data transmission. There are electric cables as well as optical cables usable for data transmission between separate devices. In particular, there are active optical cables comprising active optoelectronic elements, such as laser diodes, VCSELs, photo detectors, or photo diodes, etc. serving for active electrical-optical signal conversion, or vice-versa. For instance, there are Thunderbolt™ cables based on an underlying electrical-optical data transmission protocol.
These and other kinds of active optical cables have to be connected to computers and other devices. For instance, there are USB-3 ports providing established standards for the geometry of the electric connector plugs at the ends of the active optical cables used, such as USB-C connectors, i.e. USB type-C connectors, which provide a standard for future cable port design.
There are further conventional plug designs such as the so-called ‘display port’ or the ‘mini display port’ which, however, represent passive optical cables for monitors, rather than active optical cables.
An active optical cable comprises a number of optical fibers, for instance four or eight optical fibers. For active optical cables, that is for cables actively converting electrical signals to optical signals or vice versa at the respective fiber end piece, there is the problem of how to effectively couple the optical fiber end piece to the active elements, such as laser diodes, VCSELs, photo detectors or photo diodes, etc. in order to ensure high coupling efficiency with minimum signal losses. Further, a mechanically robust design of the connector plugs of an optical fiber cable is needed. In particular, properly connecting both fiber end pieces to the light emitting and/or light detecting optoelectronic elements is still a critical issue since, for ensuring minimum signal losses, it is vital that each of the two fiber end pieces of any optical fiber is coupled to a corresponding optoelectronic element in an individually aligned position and/or orientation. Proper alignment of each fiber end piece to the photo diodes, laser diodes or other kinds of optoelectronic elements is challenging since, for reducing excessive connector plug height, an optical turn of about 90° is often required when the optoelectronic elements are mounted or arranged in an orientation chosen such that the propagation direction of radiation signals to be emitted and/or detected by them is substantially normal to the main surface of the circuit board of the respective connector device.
For achieving the optical turn by about 90° and for providing a robust electrical-optical connection with minimum signal loss, there is still a need for an adequate construction of connector devices and of active optical cables comprising them.